


recoil.

by reiicharu



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Assassins, Gen, Vague Dystopia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 00:17:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1919574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reiicharu/pseuds/reiicharu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino is an assassin who just wants out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	recoil.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrangerenters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/gifts).



> written for astrangerenters for 2014 Nino Exchange. I spent some of my exam block panicking over this before watching Casino Royale and Platina Data to get into the mood. Okay, when I say watching, more so skipping to Nino on the run and Bond meeting Vesper. So much thanks to J (for the cheerleading) and Inez (the patience and the beta-ing), and R (for helping me write dystopias) and Jamie for being such a sport and being my recipient for the second time.

Nino runs, with a price on his head and thinks nothing of his regrets.

 

 

The Fukushima project was just children and scientists. 

Did it bother you, he asked Jun. 

No, Jun said. It’s just what we have to do.

Nino thought about it and he wanted to say no, I don’t want to do it anymore. 

 

 

Nino is not disillusioned with the world, nor does he want to run onto the streets and wave a flag dipped in red paint and say that the government is driving this country into the ground, this is the blood of our countrymen, can you hear us sing. That’s not his style, that’s never been who he is—that is, before they took away whoever he was before it all because Nino was someone else before it all, they all were—but sometimes, he feels like he’s having thoughtcrimes.

He’s read it in a book before, about thoughtcrimes and a government with that rewrites the history, the past and the present and the people who love you, who draw out your innermost thoughts until they’re words and those words are treason, those people who always save themselves before you. 

It’s not so different from his day job. 

But Nino isn’t disillusioned. Nino doesn’t care what the government wants. Nino has pulled the trigger many times and watched bodies fall. Children are no different; they’re just a smaller target. To him now, they’re just smaller people. People are now people instead of potential targets and paychecks. 

Maybe, the problem is that he’s coming back to himself, whoever he was. 

 

 

He wakes up in a cheap motel room, takes one look at his face in the mirror and thinks he could probably blend in with everyone else. He’s not particularly outstanding on most days and Nino is probably the last thing on their list of priorities. They have a lot of priorities, and a runaway cleaner—that’s what they’re called, they’re cleaners. They clean up messes made by people who can pay, by the government, by anyone who’s marred the clean surface they called their world, sweeping it away like a cleaner—would be the last thing they should worry about. 

He takes a shower. When he’s out, the motel phone rings.

“Hello handsome.”

His hand grips the phone tightly and he keeps his voice even, “Hello beautiful.”

“I heard it’s going to be a cloudy day.”

“Well, I hope you brought an umbrella.”

She laughs, “Good thing I haven’t gotten rained on yet.”

“Have a good day.”

“Try not to get caught in the storm.”

Keiko’s the one who changed his records the day he left. She kept the security cameras and system rerouted long enough for Nino to get himself out of there. She kept everything on a deadlock for as long as she could, so that he could get a head start.

Keiko’s not a believer, nor is she content. She just doesn’t see the point in fighting.

“What tipped you over?” she asked Nino, when he told her that he needed a favour. 

“I’m tired,” Nino replied simply. 

She didn’t ask him for anything else, just told him that there’ll be a small opening next week. An update of the systems. I can do everything else, but that’s your best chance to give yourself a head start. 

He never asked why she’s helping and she didn’t ask him to pay her. 

 

 

Jun was the talk of the active field agents, with his marksmanship and perceived arrogance.

It didn’t take Nino longer than twenty minutes to guess, right to his face: “You chose this life, didn’t you?” 

So it would make sense, that if anyone volunteered to come after him, it would be Jun. 

 

 

He’s been gone less than forty-eight hours and Keiko’s intel says there’s a team on the way.

If he’s lucky, Aiba won’t be with them. Conflict of interest.

They started out together, they bled together and whoever they used to be, they died together. Nino knew Aiba when he was a scared boy who would cover his ears when they started talking about an autopsy. Nino wanted to cover his ears as well. But Nino wasn’t Aiba and he sat there, eyes trained to the front. 

But he doesn’t think he’ll be that lucky. 

He gets out onto the streets and then a payphone he passes starts ringing. 

As he walks faster, the phones of civilians start ringing, so Nino picks up the pace and he starts running. 

 

 

His contact meets him on a building rooftop.

“Ariake?” the guy asks.

“Yeah, you Ohno?”

“Yeah.”

Nino hands over the cash and Ohno hands him the briefcase. “There’s a twelve thirty to Seoul with your name on it. If you can stay alive long enough to get on the plane, my guy there will take care of you.” 

 

 

He taught Sho how to assemble a gun.

The thing about Sho is that everyone jokingly says he’s part time. Sho can’t get blood on his hands, quite literally and perhaps figuratively. He gets called in as operations manager. He’s in front of computer screens and barking into their ear pierces. Sho weighs the risks and he tells them whether to hold fire or just blow up the entire damn building.

The body count to Sho is just numbers and causalities. But, everyone admires him because he’s better, because he cares about what could be collateral. 

Nino wants to know if he can even shoot a gun properly. 

The kickback always got to him, every time he was at the practice range. 

Nino left those lessons to Jun, left them to be alone there with a paper target. Or maybe that target was in Jun’s head. Aim for the heart, Nino would have liked to have seen it. 

But Nino once took apart a gun and asked Sho to put it back together.

“That’s not what I’m here for,” Sho said and Nino shrugged, slid the parts across the table to him.

“So what happens if one day you need to do this?”

“I won’t need to do this,” Sho replied.

“And why is that?”

“That’s what you people are for.” 

 

 

The one hour on the train, he lets himself into the bathroom and opens the briefcase.

Ticket, new passport, all the paperwork that can buy a new life and a gun. He puts it together and counts out the cash. American dollars, if he needs to convert anything extra. Korean won, to use in Seoul.

If he reaches Seoul.

Nino’s been sent after deserters before. But they’re the ones who fall prey to their human nature. They remember that they were once just a child who wanted to be safe.

The organisation is same. They find children, young and orphaned with no family, no money, no love. Train them to serve for the sake of a better world, for country and freedom. At least, that’s what they’re told before they get a gun in their hands and are told that this is your life, this gun is your life, this is how you breathe. This is what you’re worth. 

He shoves the passport and phone into his pocket, cash into his wallet and the gun into the holster. 

Nino pauses, takes off his watch. 

Aiba gave this to him, on his twenty first. 

Nino smashes it against the sink surface and he pulls apart the dials and pieces until he finds a miniature flat silver disk with a small LED light on its surface the size of a pin. 

They know where he is. 

 

 

In the train station, the public payphone rings and Nino picks it up: “What, you’re not going to meet on the train platform and chase me down?”

“Hello to you too.”

“You put a tracker in my watch. In the watch you gave me.”

“I didn’t know. I tried telling you.”

“When?” Nino snaps.

“When I tried calling earlier. Where is it now?”

“I left the tracker on the train but I don’t think anyone is dumb enough to follow it. And you’re risking yourself by calling me, don’t be an idiot.”

“You’re my best friend.”

Nino wants to be touched by Aiba’s loyalty, by this brave display of friendship but Nino sees Aiba being cornered, Aiba being torn apart in any way possible. They would do a clean job because it’s not his body that they’ll wreck, it’ll be everything within. They’ll break whatever’s left of him. And Nino doesn’t want to be the cause of that. 

“Don’t be an idiot,” he repeats.

“I’m sorry.”

“So why did you do it?”

“Because, I wanted to make sure that if anything ever happened to you, I could find you.”

“But you never thought that I would run.”

“No,” Aiba says quietly. “I tried not to think of that.” 

“I have to go.” 

“Be careful.”

“Yeah.” Nino pauses. “You too.” 

 

 

What strikes him as interesting is that Aiba is kinder than most people. He says hello to everyone and remembers the names of anyone he’s ever worked with. If he could, he would rescue kittens. 

Aiba’s better with a sniper rifle than close combat. He wonders if that’s because it’s easier if Aiba doesn’t have to see them up close, to look them right in the eye.

Nino doesn’t have trouble sleeping. Aiba did, the first few times. 

 

 

On his flight, he thinks about what was his next assignment is supposed to be. 

He was on Fukushima for three months. He didn’t think about it until later, that they were all scientists and children. He was just doing his job. Sometimes, he stops thinking about it at all.

It changed, this time. He’s not sure why it changed. 

He keeps thinking about what the next one was supposed to be. If maybe it’s big enough that they can ignore one deserter, one person who just wants to disappear without a word. He’ll fade into the crowds, into the shadows. He doesn’t have to be anyone to them. He can keep a secret, god knows that’s their entire lives. 

Maybe he’s that good, maybe that’s why he’s on a plane and no one’s put a bullet in him because he’s good. Maybe, he thinks.

 

 

He falls asleep on the flight.

He dreams of nothing. 

 

 

Nishikido’s contact doesn’t turn up. Instead, it’s Jun in the topmost level of the parking lot and no one else around.

Nino can only assume that the guy’s now either gone off the roof or is in the back of the car. He’s not really sure if he cares. 

They’ve got their guns trained on each other and Nino can’t help but smile. 

“Advantage, J. Remember?”

“Being left handed doesn’t help your aim.”

“You used to believe me.”

“I was eleven.”

Jun started at ten. The first deliberate one was when he was eleven and that’s how they found him. Everything else was just a string of accidents, or an accumulated amount of unfortunate events. Jun told Nino this one night when he was bleeding out and Nino had his hands over the bullet hole and told him no, Jun. You don’t get to die on me. You aren’t allowed. You keep talking to me. 

Jun smiles, the type that has girls falling and guys envious. That type of smile he’s used at dinner parties when a guy suddenly kicks it from cyanide. Nino’s always admired him for it, that type of pretence that doesn’t stick to Nino but is effortless on Jun. 

“They’re offering you amnesty.”

“What, come back and promise to be a good little boy?”

“Of course you’ll have to be put in a back seat until they are sure you are ready for work again.”

“Do you want me to come back?” 

They could take the shot right there and then. 

It wouldn’t be too hard.

Pull the trigger, end it all. 

“Do you want me to come back?” Nino asks.

“That’s not my choice.”

This is why Nino’s leaving. This is why he wants out. He doesn’t want to parrot the wishes of people who try to play god with the bullshit of making the world a better place. The world is a terrible place. Why else would the organisation exist if things were somewhat even near decent? 

“If you had a choice.”

“I don’t have a choice.” 

He looks Jun in the eye and his finger slowly curls around the trigger. 

Run or fight. 

Either way, it’s still a way out.


End file.
